


How Nyota Uhura Learned That, Yes, Jim Kirk Is An Asshole

by myotpruinedmylife



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, M/M, Tarsus IV, Uhura learns that Jim is worth it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 15:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8108071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myotpruinedmylife/pseuds/myotpruinedmylife
Summary: The first time Nyota meets him, she thinks he’s an asshole.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [You Don't Have To (Say Yes)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5297936) by [luminousbeings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminousbeings/pseuds/luminousbeings). 



The first time Nyota meets him, she thinks he’s an asshole.

 

To be fair, he was an asshole. _Is_  an asshole, always will be an asshole. But that doesn’t meet she can forgive herself for immediately deciding that just because he’s an asshole, he isn’t worth her time. Maybe he isn’t, not as a sexual partner, definitely not as a romantic partner (he has such a long way to go before he’s ready for that) but as her friend?

 

She’s never had a friend like him, and she knows, with complete certainty, that she never will.

 

James Tiberius Kirk is an amazing friend, actually. He is fiercely protective, almost to the point of overbearing (and that is explained easily later on) and in general she knows she’s lucky to have him.

 

But we’re not at their friendship yet. First, they meet, he hits on her, she thinks he’s an asshole and turns away.

 

And then he knows what xenolinguistics means. That piques her curiosity enough that when he shows up at the shuttle the next day, face still bruised from the fight he got into with those other cadets, she stares just a second too long. From the way he winks at her, he noticed, and she decides, once again, he’s an asshole.

 

But… maybe keeping an ear out for him won’t be the end of the world.

 

\--

 

When she finds out Gaila is friends with him, her first thought, against her will, is _Maybe she can help me figure him out_. She hates the thought so much she spends twenty minutes berating her roommate for associating with him. (Gaila doesn’t seem convinced that Nyota hates him. Nyota hates Gaila, sometimes.)

 

Gaila will sometimes make an offhand comment about her new friend (he’s brilliant, he’s sarcastic, he’s funny, he’s awesome, _you would like him, Uhura_ ) and she hates herself for listening. She scoffs at the last comment and ignores Gaila’s eye roll.

 

And then Gaila starts dating the bastard. She knows, _knows_ , it’s going to end in tears, but at the same time she’s so fascinated by the thought of either of them settling down, much less with each other, and she thinks it might be good for him (and, oh god, when did she get to know him enough to know what would be good for him?) so she doesn’t say anything.

 

When she catches Jim cheating only a few months later, she can’t help feeling disappointed.

 

\--

 

So, maybe she got it a little wrong. Jim obviously cared about Gaila in some sense, or else he wouldn’t be upset. And he’s also an annoyingly good captain. She wants to hate him for his competence, but instead she’s just impressed. God, what is Jim Kirk doing to her?

 

Finding out Jim and Gaila hadn’t been dating the whole time makes her relieved and disappointed at the same time. Relieved, because that means Jim wasn’t a cheater who broke Gaila’s heart. Disappointed, because she stands by her assessment that he could use some monogamy. If he were aromantic she wouldn’t care much (Gaila’s mostly aromantic as far as she can tell, that’s part of why she was so surprised to hear they were dating) but she’s ninety-nine percent sure he’s actually a total closet softy.

 

Again, she hates that she knows that about him. Just… maybe not as much as before.

 

\--

 

Her captain is an enigma, wrapped in a bigger enigma, wrapped in daddy issues.

 

She desperately wants to figure him out.

 

The clues she thinks will help solve the mystery are:

 

  1. He has sooooo many issues with trust.
  2. He has sooooo many issues with intimacy.
  3. He has sooooooooooo many issues with sex.
  4. Like seriously, who doesn’t know what a safe word is? Especially someone who’s as big a slut at Jim is. (That isn’t really a judgment anymore, just an observation.)
  5. Something to do with Kevin Riley?
  6. Something to do with Tom Leighton?
  7. Kevin Riley is an orphan who lost his older sister. Did he lose a family member too? Other than his dad?
  8. And then there’s the fact that he always seems to have a granola bar or energy bar somewhere on his person. Like, he’s never without food. But he doesn’t binge eat as far as she can tell - in fact, he rarely eats outside of allotted mealtimes. It’s almost like he’s saving it for an emergency.



 

And, okay, looking back it was obvious. Well, most of it. She should have figured it out when Spock did, after Lt. Riley’s explanation of his past _. Definitely,_  she should have realised when he knew the line to the song Kevin remembered. She feels like an idiot, looking back.

 

\--

 

Even though it should have been obvious, it feels like a punch in the gut. When Jim says, “Including myself,” she feels like throwing up, because it _made so much sense_. The trust issues - Kodos had promised to save them. The connection between him, Riley, and Leighton explains so much, and the hoarding food that he never eats is instantly horrifying.

 

At first, she’s too busy fitting _Tarsus IV survivor_  into her “Who Jim Is” mental file, checking off mysteries as she goes, to think about what it doesn’t explain.

 

But after a few hours, she has nothing else to do or she’ll end up going crazy or break down, so she lists everything that’s still a mystery.

 

  1. The Intimacy Issues
  2. The Sex Issues
  3. The Safeword thing



 

And then, with some more thought, she adds trust issues back on because there're trust issues from a leader betraying you, and then there're trust issues from a friend betraying you, and Jim’s are definitely the latter.

 

Unfortunately, if she puts them together, she gets a picture so horrible she decides that maybe she should go back to obsessing over her new knowledge of Jim.

 

Besides, she can’t be right.

 

Can she?

 

\--

 

And...

 

Just...

 

Fuck.

 

She was right.

 

And when she looks around the room, she knows that Spock knew, and Bones seems to know, but no one else had put it together, yet, and now that they know, they’re as horrified as she was when she first realised.

 

When Jim pulls out the phaser, and Bones starts to try to talk him down, she’s tempted to tell Bones to shut up and let Jim do it.

 

And when it turns out to be a toy, for a second, she’s disappointed.

 

\--

 

Years later, Nyota Uhura will think about her captain as many different things.

 

He’s a husband. A good one, and he and Spock are so good together, and she isn’t jealous at all. She never was. Spock was nice, but she’s with Scotty now, and Spock needs Jim almost as much as Jim need Spock. And she’s happy for them.

 

He’s a reckless maniac. No, really, she didn’t think it was possible to end up kidnapped by aliens who were supposedly peaceful. How did Jim end up kidnapped by aliens that were _genetically engineered_  to be peaceful? It’s not supposed to be possible!

 

He’s overbearing. Even all these years later, with Kodos long dead and Lenore locked away, never to see the light of day again, he still insists on be a protective captain. He even ends up protective of Cupcake. As in, the guy whose job it is to protect the captain?

 

He’s an amazing friend. Nyota knows she’s lucky to have him.

 

And, yes, he’s an asshole.

 

Even now.


End file.
